WINTHROP COLLECTION
Baderbüchlin (1562)
Paracelsus
Paracelsus, the Swiss alchemist and physician, was a controversial figure in sixteenth-century Europe. He pitted himself against current medical theories, rejecting the Galenic system which held that the imbalance of the four humors causes illness. Paracelsus also established the role of chemistry in medicine and spurned the prevailing techniques of sweating, purging and blood-letting. Instead, he championed the use of specific remedies for specific diseases.
Professor of medicine at the University of Basel, Paracelsus lectured in German, not Latin. In 1527, surrounded by cheering students, he burned the books of Galen and Avicenna. According to one account, Paracelsus assured his listeners that the latchets of his shoes were more instructed than those two physicians and that he alone was to be regarded as the legitimate monarch of medicine. A year later, his life in danger from enemies in the medical establishment, he fled Basel.
For many years Paracelsus traveled restlessly throughout Europe and the Middle East. He investigated syphilis and miners' diseases and recognized silicosis and tuberculosis as occupational hazards. He also studied spa waters and determined that cretinism and goiter were related to the mineral content of drinking water. Baderbüchlin, published twenty-one years after his death, describes the curative benefits of bathing, including mud baths. Paracelsus theorized correctly that the medicinal action of water is due to the presence of minerals. Das Buch Meteororum explores the influence of weather on health.
This book is of special interest as it was previously owned by John Dee (1527-1608). Accused in his own time of witchcraft, Dee, an advisor to Queen Elizabeth, had an immense personal library. Our copy of Baderbüchlin shows Latin and English annotations in Dee's fine hand, alongside comments by John Winthrop.
After his death, Paracelsus' reputation lingered as a physician who performed miracles. Aspects of his life and legend influenced Goethe when he wrote Faust, as well as Marlowe and Browning.
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